I know for sure Blue mentioned an older brother.
I level my eyes on her. “He told me he had an older brother who got him started smoking weed when he was young.”
“That’s not true.”
I stare at her and Reece, who don’t seem fazed at all that Blue was talking about a brother he doesn’t even have. “Why would he lie about that?” I ask.
“To him it’s not a lie. It’s like a child who has an imaginary friend. They believe the friend is real, until eventually, they realize they’re not real. Blue has always battled with what’s real and what’s in his head.”
My head and heart start to pound in unison. Could there have been times when he didn’t think I was real?
“I honestly don’t understand any of this,” I say. “He acts a little strange sometimes, but I’ve never seen him talk to people that weren’t there or hallucinate or do anything crazy. He has a very successful career, and he’s a great father.”
A sympathetic smile crosses Ellie’s face. “I think he learned to hide it well, Piper. That’s why he drank and did drugs, to try to stop all the craziness in his head. And it masked his confusion. He walked to keep his mind busy.”
I lean back in my chair and cross my arms over my chest. “No. I don’t believe any of this. I know he had a substance abuse problem, but Blue isn’t crazy.”
“Oh I wouldn’t say he’s crazy, but I think him jumping off that roof and landing himself in this hospital was probably the best thing to happen to him.”
My jaw drops in shock and anger. “Are you serious right now? He almost died!”
“I know, and he’s very lucky he didn’t. But now he’ll get the help he needs, and a real diagnosis. Something he’s been running from his entire life.”
I’m beginning to not trust or like this woman. Why is she even here? I can’t tell if she cares about Blue or not.
She nods her elegant chin toward the engagement ring on my left hand.
“That’s quite the ring,” she says.
I pull my hand back, afraid she’ll somehow take the ring’s meaning away from me.
“Thank you. He surprised me with it. We were planning on getting married as soon as things settled down after he left the band. We have a little girl together. They adore each other.”
“I know. Reece keeps me filled in. You’re the only woman Blue has ever let in his life. He must love and trust you very much.”
“Yes,” I say, with tears threatening to start. “He does. And I love him. I’ve loved him for years.”
Her blue eyes soften with understanding. Or pity? I can’t tell. “I can see you do, and I don’t have any doubt that he loves you. I’m not trying to upset you, Piper, but you need to know what you’re dealing with, and I don’t think you have any idea. Tell me, has Blue ever mentioned his childhood to you. Say, before he was a teenager?”
Has he? Think, think, think...
I answer her with reluctance. “No. He hasn’t.”
“I didn’t think so. I was sixteen years old when Blue was born. Our mother had a lot of problems. She had bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, and suffered episodes of mania. She never should have had any children, let alone two. And certainly not an infant later in life. When she was on her medication, she was somewhat functional, and fun, and loving. But when she went off her meds, she was mostly out of her mind.”
I force myself to breathe and listen as Ellie tells me more. “Our father was a drinker, and quite frankly, an abusive asshole. He was not equipped to deal with a mentally ill wife and two children. I learned at a very young age to just stay away from them both and take care of myself. When I was old enough, I worked in town and saved all my money so I could get my own place and get as far away from them as possible. And then Evan was born, and suddenly there was a baby that nobody wanted to take care of. Luckily, he was an extremely quiet baby. Too quiet, if I recall. He never cried or made any noise. He’d just lay there, in his crib or on the floor, and stare at the ceiling or out the window. Our mother would forget to feed him, sometimes for days when she was having an episode, and he wouldn’t make a sound. He’d just wait.”
“That’s horrible…” I almost scream. “That’s child abuse.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “It was. I tried to take care of him. I know it sounds terrible, but I was just a teenager and didn’t really understand the seriousness of it all. I was in denial, I guess, and didn’t really know what to do.”
I try to picture myself as a teen in the same situation. What would I have done?
“Our mother loved birds,” she continues, and my heart plummets into my stomach because I already know where this is going. I already know. “She was obsessed with them and had all different kinds that she bought or rescued. And when she was good, she took wonderful care of them, and of Evan. He was too little to understand her massive mood swings, and the erratic behavior differences, and he believed that good mom and bad mom were two different people. And she let him believe that.”
“An aunt? Did he think good mom was an aunt?” My voice shakes.
She nods with confirmation. “Yes. A wonderful, cool aunt. Evan was crazy about the birds. He was about four or five I think when he really started to spend time with the birds. He still wasn’t talking, actually, I don’t think Evan started to talk until he was almost six years old. He’d sit on the porch with the birds all day, listening to them chirp, and he’d chirp right along with them, and mimic their little songs, and he’d write in these old notebooks. One day I found him in one of the big cages with his favorite bird, chirping and writing away and I couldn’t get his attention for anything. He thought the bird was talking to him, and I think he really believed he understood what it was saying, and he told me his name wasn’t Evan, it was Blue. He was in his own world, and I knew right there, that he was screwed. Either he inherited what our mother had or she made him crazy or maybe it was both. I don’t know. I eventually moved out, and I’d go back and check on him once a week and he seemed mostly okay. He was in school, and he was dragging an old guitar around with him, and even though he was still hanging out with the birds, he wasn’t in the cage anymore. I thought he’d be okay. He was odd, and detached, but he seemed okay and not in any danger.”
“You just left a little boy in a situation like that?”
“I did, and I’ve always regretted it, but I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid of them.”
“You should have gotten him help. The state would have taken him and put him in foster care, wouldn’t they?”
“Yeah,” Reece agrees. “They would have.”
“I didn’t want him to be taken away. I know that’s selfish and I know now it was wrong, but I didn’t want him taken away. I loved him. I thought he would be okay. I thought he’d be like me and just get through it and leave when he could.”
I want to strangle this woman. I don’t care if she was just a teenager, she knew right from wrong and she should have helped her little brother—not left him with parents who couldn’t take care of him.
“Well obviously he wasn’t okay!” I say. “You were older, you should have done something.”
She nods, not breaking eye contact with me
“We can’t go back in time and change it, Piper,” Reece says softly. “Ellie’s not a bad person. She was just a kid herself.”